Tiger Soldiers.--Woosung Drill.--General's Gallantry.--Japanese War.--Admiral Ting.--Dominoes with a Sentry.--Viceroy's Review.
At Ichang, a thousand miles up the river Yangtse, there is a regiment of soldiers dressed as tigers; but I never could persuade any of the foreign officials to escort me to see them manuvre, the European opinion being that not even the presence of an inspecting general would awe the Tiger soldiers sufficiently to make it safe to take a foreign lady to see them. I was told that the Tigers were not really soldiers at all, but that some officer drew pay for them as if they existed; and then when the General came to inspect, all the beggars and riff-raff of the city put on the Tiger uniform over their rags, and turned out in so disorderly a condition that even their officers were afraid of them. And so it turned out that, except from a passing steamer, I never saw Chinese soldiers drill till I did so at Woosung, the new Treaty Port, at the junction of the Whangpoo, on which Shanghai is situated, with the great river Yangtse.
It was a Sunday in autumn, and the early morning air felt keen as we steamed down to Woosung, and landed at the fort. Eleven gunboats in a row, all decorated with large flags, the biggest flag in each boat a different arrangement of black, red, yellow, and white, had prepared us for its being a gala day, but hardly for the pretty sight we found upon the parade-ground, where five hundred men were being drilled with a hundred banners among them, not to speak of bannerets, many of the banners being ten feet square. The men formed in square, in rallying groups, fired altogether, one after the other, all to the sound of a bugle, without a single order being given. Drill sergeants in huge straw hats stood before them, and inspected them; and the men's own dress was picturesque enough--loose jackets with large characters upon them behind and before placed in circles like targets, and large loose-flapping leg-guards of decided colours. To the bugle's note the men folded their banners round the spears they carried, to the bugle's note they again flung them loose to the wind, executing both manuvres with a singular adroitness. There was never a hitch, and the drill appeared admirable, recalling that to be seen from Birdcage Walk in a very curious fashion; for it was every now and again diversified by a primitively savage jump forward with spears pointed, to the sound of a terror-inspiring yell, and then a sort of goose-step retreat, after which the banners that had been tightly wound round the spears were shaken out again, and the men became civilised soldiers once more, admirably drilled.